ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the tendency on the part of commentators on the 'knowledge' or 'information' society to conflate knowledge and information. More fundamentally, the systematic attempt to develop an artificial form of intelligence, or machine thinking, is contributing directly to the tendency to reduce thinking to the manipulation of information. The chapter focuses on the way in which habitual interaction with screens may be undermining the skilfulness needed for the practice of analytical thinking. Arguments to this effect are supported by depictions of the differences between print and screen textualisations, these differences being discussed by theorists of computerised media in terms of the distinction between text and hypertext. The chapter explains the topic of informatisation as this is enacted with the ever-proliferating sub-disciplines of the life sciences. A massive alienation of knowledge from its human users was accomplished as craftwork was subsumed to abstract labour through the mechanisation of techne.
